I DID IT!



I wrote 3000 words today, and also finished most of a bottle of wine (beautiful, beautiful wine). And it's not even LATE yet.

I remember, in 2003, when I hit 50k, I was SO PSYCHED, had to take a brisk walk up the hill (wearing the very same sweater I'm wearing at the moment, now that I think of it -- weird). But then in 2004, even though I made it to 50k in time, I felt very "eh" about the whole thing. Like, eh, that's over, and eh, my ending sucks, and eh, whatever. (This is probably a byproduct of the fact that I was very much a Disillusioned Teen at that point.)

This year, instead of forcing out a terrible ending, I just kept writing until I hit 50k and stopped, mid-scene. I mean, I know I need to revamp the entire book anyway, so why bother finishing the ending? I got TO the ending, anyway, so it's not like it's a mystery.

And, I'm pretty damn happy with myself. So, I'm gonna finish this bottle of wine, and watch Lost on Netflix, and knit, and sit here being proud of myself, trying not to think about what an enormous piece of absolute shit I just produced.

So, here I am. Three days of NaNo left. More like two, actually--I work until 11pm on the 30th, so it would be a REALLY good idea to have the novel done before I leave for work that day. (For some reason, validating my wordcount on the website and getting the associated goodies is actually something that matters to me, even though I think it shouldn't.)

And I'm on track. I broke 45k yesterday, and now I just need to keep going and get that last 10% of the novel out. I don't expect I will actually get to the end of the story, but it kind of doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter, because I realized somewhere around the 30k mark that the story I've been writing all month is only one thread out of at least three and possibly four that make up this story as a whole. In fact, I suspect almost everything I wrote this month will get thrown out as I figure out which scenes require different PoV characters, etc. etc. etc.

Oddly enough, I don't feel bad about this, even though I've worked my butt off trying to get these words written. I'm learning the shape of the story, and what it needs, and how to make it stop crying when it wakes up in the middle of the night, and which foods make it spit up, and I've got its dirty diaper schedule pretty well memorized. (Yeah, I know we use childbirth metaphors for writing a lot, but nobody ever acknowledges the dirty truth.)

So, all in all, I'm in pretty good shape! Just . . . I'm gonna whine now.

( You can skip this, if you want )

Not only did I get to 25k the other night, but I finished the next day slightly ahead, and today I've built up my lead so that I'm only about 500 words behind tomorrow's wordcount goal, with a wordcount of 29,537. It would actually not have been very hard to get that last 500 and get to 30k tonight, which would be pretty cool, but I'm very tired, and I think that being SO CLOSE will give me more motivation to write tomorrow before work (which is something I find difficult, on the days I work 2-11.)

I am so proud of myself for not wasting these three days I haven't been at Walmart. (I had two days totally off, and then today I worked for the newspaper, which is barely work at all. Except for the getting up at 7am part.) Basically, I'm awesome!

. . . well, not that awesome. Because, oh God, my novel is bad. It's bad, bad, bad . . . not fit for fertilizer. I'm really glad it's getting written, but God, I'm going to have some serious excavation to do to pull the very few diamonds out of this pile of stinking shit, once November is over. (I recently compared November to a month-long bowel movement. Which is a disgusting metaphor, but isn't it true, you guys?)

Now, I have to try to get myself to go outside and look at the meteors. I know if I do it, I won't regret it, but it's COLD outside, and not particularly warm in the house, so I'm worried that if I go out there, I won't be able to warm back up before bed.

Ah well. Suck it up, Emma!

Spent my day hanging out on a sheep farm! There was much knitting, and wool talk, and some sheep wrangling. (I held the clipboard to record which sheep were getting sent to slaughter. It was a little bit sobering, but I am determined to not to be a meat eater unless I'm willing to look my dinner in the face first, so . . . yeah.)

And now, it is time for NaNo! I'm hoping to hit 25k today, since it's the halfway point, and I feel like if I can reach the halfway point on time, I can reach the end on time. And I'm at the point in the story where we get the big scene that is the transition between the first and second halves of the story, which should be full of drama and hopefully easy to write.

The only pitfall I can see is that suddenly we're moving into a part of the story where the nine-year-old who's been my point of view character so far will not likely be present for many of the scenes I want to write. (I can use "In Space" to fudge a lot of stuff about this story, but I'm pretty sure that even In Space, children aren't generally present when their custody, for example, is being discussed.)

But, I also don't really want to abandon her as my PoV character, because . . . I mean, it's been pretty much 25,000 words, and that's an awfully long time to go before suddenly breaking PoV. Especially since there's no other character I'd want to commit to for the second 25k; the nine-year-old does need to come back for it. If I didn't need her later, I could see dividing the book into two parts and having a different PoV character for each.

As it is, I will just have to be creative about what I show and don't show. Fortunately, she is a pretty nosy nine-year-old. I already have her overhearing conversations and spying on things. I suppose she will continue that way. It is freaking hard to have a child as your main character, guys! Orson Scott Card got away with it in Ender's Game by making an entire society full of autonomous children, but if you're working in a world that's full of adults, there's not a lot kids can do. But my girl is determined to do it anyway.

I suspect that this is exactly the sort of thing you're not supposed to worry about during NaNo, but if I don't feel good about the story, then I don't enjoy writing it, so I need to make sure I'm comfortable enough with the format (if not the content) that I still feel it's worth carrying on.

I sort of love my life right now. I mean, there are parts of it that really suck, but there are also a lot of parts that are really fantastic and irreplaceable. And several of them are things that are completely unique to this particular place and time--I couldn't get them anywhere else. To wit:

A) The Doghouse Espresso, the little coffee shop on Main Street, is pretty much my favorite place in the world these days. I'm so comfortable here, and my brother makes me amazing coffee, and it's just such an unmitigated pleasure to spend my free time here.

B) My brother, period. We're living together for the first time in about five years, and it's been so wonderful developing a relationship with him now that we're both sort of adults. Honestly, it would be pretty miserable living where I do if he wasn't there. We share enough interests to be able to spend quality time together, and we're different enough that we challenge each other--it's basically exactly what you'd look for in a friend. Joe's introduced me to espresso--like, how to really appreciate good espresso, and also to good beer, and also to good music. Meanwhile, I've been lending him pretty much my entire Neil Gaiman collection and am getting him started on Diana Wynne Jones soon.

C) Beer! We have a local brewery that focuses on high quality, small batch beer that is pretty much earthshaking. I don't get up there as often as I like, but my brother does, and often brings some home to share.

D) My current Internet community. I was worried for a little while after I graduated from college that after spending so much time sort of disconnected from everything except LiveJournal, I wouldn't have much an Internet community to turn to after I was away from college. But it turns out, I'm surrounded by a rich, beautiful community of people I like, who entertain and support me. Twitter has been a huge help in that; I feel like I'm having little miniature conversations with people all day long.

E) NaNoWriMo. We're far enough into November now that NaNo has become a way of life--if I'm not working, I'm either writing, or (more likely) feeling guilty about not writing. Either way, I'm thinking about it constantly, plotting about how to find writing time (and motivation). My novel is complete tripe, but, well, at least it's getting written. (Although I'm quite behind. Sigh.)

I'm gonna brag, guys--I totally pwned at NaNo yesterday. I woke up early and dragged my computer over into bed with me and wrote 1000 words before I'd even stepped out of bed. Wrote another 800 works between visiting the coffee shop and my lunch break at Walmart. (I'm especially proud of successfully writing about 500 words during my Walmart shift.)

I also found time to run a Peace Corps-related errand in there. And I worked until 11:30. And when I got home, our Internet wasn't working (I suspect it still isn't), so I couldn't get on and brag! Very sad.

The problem is, I have to do the same thing today. Also, I am still behind, if you're figuring things at 1667 words a day--but my spreadsheet tells me that if I write 1722 words a day, I'll be fine. And I'll give it another big push on my next day off, which is Thursday. This month is anything but a sure thing, since I'm all over the place, productivity-wise, but I'm basically too damn stubborn NOT to win.

Now my lunch break is ending. Time to get back to the proofreading!

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again! I missed it a lot while I was in college, so this is VERY EXCITING for me. Unfortunately, since I have Twitter now, it's led me to neglect the LJ (whereas, before Twitter, NaNo would have sparked Much Posting here). Ah well.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop in pat myself on the back for everything I did today. I got out of bed by 9, and I had a marathon and wrote 1000 words in an hour, which at least twice as fast as I normally write, and then I hurried down to Montrose, got a polio vaccination, and ran three other errands all in time to show up at work by 2pm. Also, I wrote a couple hundred words on my lunch break.

So, my wordcount is behind, but I don't really feel bad. It was a full day. Trouble is, tomorrow I have to get up do it again--I need to get 2000 words at least before I go to work at 2. I think I will sleep now!

I got a lot of work done this evening. I worked on my essay for like five hours, but I didn't finish it. The hardest part was working out a better outline. Now I just have to write it down, and the only problem is figuring out where I should be quoting and if I'm summarizing too much. I can write just fine, but I'm lost at trying to use a text to support it. I've never done this before. But it's moving along. I would've finished it tonight, except I had to stop so I could read for English. That's why I'm not in bed yet.

One day at a time. This is the hardest part of the year, I know that from homeschooling. November is where I always lost it before, but I can't lose it here, because I'm at college now and I actually have a GPA to think about. Accountability, heh.

I wish I could do NaNo. I'm going to miss it. Virginia and I are going to do a mini-NaNo when I go to her house over Thanksgiving break, but it's not the same. I wonder when I'll be able to do it again. Maybe not until I graduate. Why couldn't it be during the summer? But it'd be wrong in any month but November, anyway.

It's cold now. Except, I'm not sure if it's cold enough to break out my winter coat. So I'm left with the decision of do I wear my lighter jacket even though it's not fashionable, or look nice and freeze?

At least I get to start wearing my scarves again. They make me happy.

Sleeeeeepy.